The above summary reflects my daughter's reaction to the first two minutes of "Dressed to Kill" as it played on our television. This is because the opening scene features a very hard core scene for a rated-R film...where a woman masturbates in the shower and then fantasizes that she's violently attacked....an odd juxtaposition of sex and violence to begin any film! Yes, with its very graphic nudity and violence, this is probably NOT a film to show your mother, children or Father Peterson if he stops by for a visit!

When the actual story begins, you learn that Kate (Angie Dickenson) is a sexually frustrated woman...as she divulges this to her therapist (Michael Caine). Her marriage apparently isn't fulfilling and she longs for a lover. And, in the next scene, she has a kinky quickie with a stranger she's just met in an art museum...and they consummate it in a cab, not in the museum itself....though if they had, doubtless that many patrons would have assumed it was some sort of performance art! He then takes her to his apartment, here they continue the love-making. Oddly, these sequences aren't all that graphic...while the opening scene was tremendously so. I'd also say more about the plot but it's difficult to do this without revealing spoilers. Suffice to say, it is a very violent and bloody film.

So is it any good? Yes, though the surprises in the film sure seem a lot less surprising in 2021. Again, I'd like to say more about that...but it would ruin the suspense in the movie. The problem with the film isn't whether or not it's well made or intelligently written...more who would want to see the film in the first place. Yes, it was a popular film in the day, but the violence, seemingly misogynistic plot (according to MANY) and sexual content in the movie are guaranteed to offend many. Well made and scary but not for everyone, that's for sure! If made today, I truly wonder if the film would have been given an NC-17 rating...a rating that wasn't available back in 1980.

Originally I was planning on giving it an 8...it's well done. However, the FIRST ending was VERY talky and characters spent too much time talking and talking about what happened in the story....which was selling viewers a bit short. Additionally, the scene in the mental hospital was overdone and even a bit stupid.

Brian De Palma here directs another above-average thriller dealing with his principal interests of sex and violence, in his own flamboyant and inimitable style. All of the things you expect from a good De Palma film are here, from the fluid and interesting use of the camera which gives the film a classy visual look, to the elegant music by Pina Donnagio, to the Hitchcock references. Here, it's PSYCHO, with supposed heroine Angie Dickinson, a middle-aged housewife with a problematic sex life, who becomes drawn into a storyline involving a killer.

De Palma shows a total understanding of the elements required to make a gripping thriller in this movie and he does everything right. Not least of which is assembling a solid and proficient cast, highlighted by Michael Caine's twitchy turn as a psychiatrist with a dark secret of his own. Fine too, is Dickinson as the bored housewife, around whose sex life much of the film is centred. De Palma enjoys playing with Dickinson's character, twisting her around so that a moment of joy becomes a moment of horror as she learns that a man she has just slept with has a venereal disease. Nancy Allen turns up as the classy prostitute with a heart, who finds herself stalked by the killer in some suspenseful sequences (the best of which is at a train station - something about De Palma and train stations is just right). Smaller parts are taken by Keith Gordon as the young, brainy hero, and Dennis Franz, who adopts the cop-you-love-to-hate type role which he would recreate throughout much of his later career.

Highlights in the film for me include an excellent cat-and-mouse game in an art gallery as Dickinson attempts to snag a prospective lover; the aforementioned train sequence in which Allen is chased by both a gang of thugs and the killer; and of course the taut lift sequence. The violence is bloody and brutal without being over the top, and a strong sexual undercurrent runs throughout the movie, occasionally erupting into the aforementioned violence with a lot of power. De Palma can't resist inserting one final shock/dream sequence at the end, either, which rounds things off nicely. Although his repeated camera tricks sometimes work against him (the split-screen, for instance, isn't as effective here as in CARRIE, making the screen muddled instead of exciting),DRESSED TO KILL still stands as a solid, powerful thriller made at the height of De Palma's career.

Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) is a sexually frustrated NYC housewife with science nerd son Peter (Keith Gordon). She goes to psychiatrist Doctor Robert Elliott (Michael Caine). She has an affair with a stranger and then is killed in the elevator by a tall blonde woman with a straight razor. Call girl Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) sees the killer in the elevator and picks up the razor. Detective Marino (Dennis Franz) investigates as she becomes the main witness, a suspect and the next target. Marino gives her 48 hours to find her out of town client who ran away after seeing bloody Kate.

I love director Brian De Palma's split screen style. He does it not only with actual split screens but also by splitting the action between background and foreground. There are three amazing high tension thrill scenes. The subway scene, the thunderstorm scene and the final bathroom scene are so memorable. They are all terrific. Dennis Franz is over acting as the hard-talking cop. Also I wasn't as concerned about the transgender serial killer stereotype back in the day when I first saw this movie. I think these are minor missteps that this thriller more than make up for.